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In his press conference just now, President Obama just said that the fiscal commission has not been shelved, despite the lack of pickup of its ideas in his budget. He said that the fact that it got 11 votes – three less than it needed to move on to Congress – showed it served as a framework for the discussion. He said that there was a lot in that fiscal commission report he agreed with, and some he didn’t agree with “as a matter of principle.” And he got annoyed at the press corps for wanting everything to happen tomorrow rather than letting it play out.
Sadly, we didn’t hear a follow-up on that question, asking what, in particular, he disagreed with as a matter of principle. Because I’d really like to know, and I’m not sure it matches with the things I’d disagree with as a matter of principle. For instance, he countered the fact that there was a broad consensus for the fiscal commission report by saying that Paul Ryan, chair of the House Budget Committee, didn’t vote for it. “So I’d have to have a conversation with him” about it, Obama said. So, do his concerns match with Paul Ryan’s? Or would he have to sacrifice what he disagreed with as a matter of principle, to get Ryan on board?
It would be great to get a little more information here. Does he agree with the fiscal commission that military spending should be seen as the same as non-security spending, with the same percentage of cuts? That’s not really in the budget. Does he agree with the fiscal commission that there need to be one trillion dollars saved by eliminating tax expenditures? Because the budget looks at corporate tax reform – a roadmap for a broader tax reform – as budget-neutral, removing expenditures but also lowering the rates. Does he agree on the cuts to Social Security and raising the retirement age? Because the principles listed in the budget on Social Security don’t necessarily conflict with that.
Obama rightly said in the presser that Social Security is not a main driver of the deficit or federal spending (it actually has no bearing on the deficit at all), and that “I’m confident that we can accomplish that through modest adjustments” which avoid “slashing” benefits. He said that Medicare and Medicaid are huge problems, because the cost of health care are rising even as the country gets older, and so it’s more of a health care spending problem than a Medicare and Medicaid problem. It’s true that the government is an insurance company protected by a large standing army. But those are really abstract terms. So I think I’ll follow up on this virtually every time I get a chance: what are the areas of agreement between the President and the fiscal commission? What about the areas he disagrees with on principle?
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This is a really important statement.
“He said that Medicare and Medicaid are huge problems, because the cost of health care are rising even as the country gets older, and so it’s more of a health care spending problem than a Medicare and Medicaid problem.”
This perspective is missing from most reporting. The long run deficit problem is not discretionary spending but rising costs of health care, an economy wide problem that also affects the budget only because Medicare and Medicaid have to pay those rising costs. Thus the budget deficit problem is not that seniors get too much care. It’s that health providers are paid too much for the level of care we receive, whether via government or the private sector.
So then you ask, what did the cat food commission recommend to control rising health care costs? Nothing. They said the govt should try to do something about it.
What does the Obama budget do to fix this? Nothing, except fund the ACA implementation, which won’t have much affect. There’s no effort to augment antitrust or other price fixing. No Medicare for all or other proposals to give govt the market power to force lower drug prices , etc.
What do the Republcans propose.? Worse than nothing. They would cripple all efforts to regulate costs.
Ignore the deficit kabuki for a second and imagin what these costs will be doing to econamy in general.
err…
Ignore the deficit kabuki for a second and imagine what these costs will be doing to economy in general.
Obama has no principles, other than destroying the “Left”, and the Democratic Party. Obama needs to steal our Social Security to pay for his wars. Obama has now adopted Republican Shock Doctrine, as he puts the rest of us into poverty. Obama is a THIEF.
Good luck getting an answer to those questions. But thanks for trying.